


Sea Foam

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Needs To Use His Words, Fairy Tale Elements, Fuck Or Die, M/M, Stiles has impulse control issues, Werewolf Marriage, minor infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 01:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4459538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles had a girlfriend. She was a great girlfriend. </p><p>He also had Derek Hale asleep in his bed.</p><p>This was a problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sea Foam

**Author's Note:**

> Holy crap I made it. I can't tell you what a time I had putting this fic together, largely because I started over a dozen different fics and none of them made it to a sensible conclusion. I have nearly 100K of useless sitting on my hard drive right now and I'm hoping this fic was worth it. 
> 
> I have to say thank you so much to the wonderful bicanthrope for the art that started it all and the wonderful team that put together the Teen Wolf Reverse bang.
> 
> Be sure to give bicanthrope all your love over [here](http://bicanthrope.tumblr.com/image/124928610990) for her beautiful artwork.

The ceiling was white. It still had the same spidery cracks creeping out from the ceiling fan, the same dent in the spackle from his one attempt at home repairs, and the chain was still missing the white toggle he'd broken a week after moving in. The sheets were still faded peach that probably leaned closer to orange once upon a time and matched the tiny flowers on the duvet. His pillow was lumpy with a trace of damp from sleeping on it with wet hair one too many times, the nightstand still leaned and peeled at the edges, and a collage of photos spilled across the wall by his closet. He tried to focus on the faces, knowing more from memory than ability the faces and places. Scotty and his mop top hair, Lydia's shock of strawberry curls, Allison and her dark tumble.  
  
It took him awhile before he could stomach seeing her face on the wall and time didn't exactly heal all wounds, but it really made you appreciate the good things despite the pain. He'd had help with that.  
  
He blinked at the ceiling, a silent circular thought rolling along the back of his head that if he didn't move, it wouldn't be real. Schrodinger's Problem. Stiles life was both fucked and perfectly fine at the same time as long as he didn't turn over.  
  
Because the bed should be empty. Margie was in Boston, branching out to the east coast covens now that her sisters were making a name for themselves outside of California. It should be half made, because Margie'd been raised a military brat with a healthy respect for routine and made the bed before she left, but Stiles would twist and tug a little more every night until the sheets tugged loose and he rolled into a floral burrito. The hair stuck to the pillow would be blond; some long like she used to wear, others short since she walked out of the salon devastated by her unwanted pixie cut. He'd liked her hair longer, but he had to admit the short hair seemed to make her eyes light up every time she laughed. Stiles knew that's what he should see, but it wouldn't be, because the bed wasn't empty.  
  
It was fantastically, guiltily, not empty and Stiles had no idea how that happened.  
  
Then again, when it came to Derek Hale? Stiles never knew much of anything.  
  
-  
  
“Jesus, ow, shit. Okay, okay, okay - I hear you! Christ on a crispy,” Stiles tripped towards the door, stumbling gracefully over the mountain of shoes that had naturally been increasing over the last six months since he'd helped the coven branch out into commercial sales. There never used to be this many high heels around. He shook out his foot and hissed at the throbbing scrape along his instep that oozed sluggishly. That was going to be a bitch when he went running tomorrow.  
  
No more high heels by the door, he decided. It was time to wave a white flag and admit defeat – Margie could buy one of those ridiculous shoe organizers she'd been insisting on for the last three months. She was right, he was wrong, and he had the blood sacrifice to prove it. If she wanted to kill him, he'd let her get creative about it, because he was not having 'Nine West through the right eye socket' listed as his cause of death.  
  
Another round of insistent knocking rang through the apartment, making him jump and slam his weight down on his injured foot with a hiss. “God, what!” Stiles yelled, ripping the door open, “What could you possibly wa – Derek?”  
  
He stared.  
  
Derek was standing there like he belonged, hands tucked into the pockets of his dark pants, fancy enough to have crease pressed down the leg and perfectly brushing the top of his leather shoes, and making the baby blue of his soft turtleneck stand out all the more. It was surreal the way his face had softened – not physically, really, but there was something about the line of his jaw that said his edges weren't quite so sharp. The tension was gone behind his eyes and while he wasn't smiling, the was a hint of happiness behind his lips. Even his hair looked more comfortable with itself. He shifted minutely in the hallway and for a split second, Stiles expected him to blush.  
  
Of course, Stiles' brain-to-mouth filter struggled at the best of times and it tended to experience catastrophic failure when he was surprised, so the first thing out of his mouth was, “Nice duds. Did you get yourself a sugar daddy or something?”  
  
-  
  
Looking back, that was where he could draw the line and say, 'This is where it stopped making sense.'  
  
If asked, Stiles would say remind people that Derek tended to respond to his personal brand of humor with various levels of expressive aggression. At best, there should have been an annoyed roll of his eyes while Derek snapped some irritated comment and shouldered his way through the door. Maybe practiced the Sheriff's patented parenting stare, courtesy of their stint as a comedic buddy cop duo. For old time's sake, Derek could've even shoved him against the wall and threatened him with some barbaric and pointedly animalistic form of pain, but did he? No. No, Derek Hale did not show up on his doorstep and follow the rulebook. He ate the rulebook. He destroyed it. He violated it and Stiles was a terrible person because he was still pretty blown away.  
  
Point being, Derek didn't do the things Derek does. He did the thing Derek doesn't do, which, specifically, included touching Stiles naked. Without words. Because who needs 'Hey, Stiles. I know it's been awhile but I was thinking about you and I thought maybe, ya know, I should come visit so we could explore that heavy sexual tension you had over my abs when you were a sixteen year old virgin?' Not Stiles, obviously.  
  
Bracing himself, Stiles finally sucked up his internal freakout and looked at his own personal brand of Coyote Ugly. It really would have helped if the Hollywood horror were true, but unsurprisingly, Derek wasn't some beer goggle tragedy. His hair, styled simply and respectably the night before, was thoroughly tousled and only half of it was from Stiles' fingers, because his face burrowed deep into the pillow – Not Margie's, Stiles' noted, eying her abandoned in the far corner under the window. - features soft as he puffed each breath steadily against his hand. He even drooled a little. It was sweet.  
  
Fuck it all, Stiles decided. Fuck this, fuck that, fuck him in particular, because what the fuck was he supposed to do with this?  
  
God, what was he supposed to do?  
  
The little voice in the back of his head insisting he should just ignore it until it went away got a bit louder and it sounded more convincing with every round.  
  
He gave it a try. The room echoed silently with the gentle puff, puff, puff of Derek's breathing and the whine of the wind outside.  
  
Yeah, ok. That wasn't going to work. When Stiles ignored things, Scott usually came in and fixed it for him and this wasn't exactly the sort of thing he could ask his bestie to deal with.  
  
With a heave, Stiles immediately flopped over and shoved at Derek's shoulder to give him a good firm shake. It was time to start talking and with a Hale, the sooner the better because it was going to take some work. At least, Stiles assumed so. This Derek was so different from the one he remembered, it was almost like someone had decided to play puppet master and give his good looks a new personality which, oh, hell no. No, that was a bad, bad place for his thoughts to be going and what if Derek was cursed? What if he'd made his way to Stiles to help him and instead of realizing what was wrong, he'd just tumbled into bed with a hapless victim because he was good with his tongue? He was the magical go-to. It would only make sense for Derek to come to him if something went wrong. He'd failed everyone, taken advantage of Derek and – Oh god, what if was contagious? Like, curse herpes.  


It would explain so much.  _  
  
_ Stiles let go of Derek's shoulder and scrambled off the bed.  
  
I mean, sure, he didn't  _feel_ cursed. But sexually transmitted enchantments certainly made more sense than anything else right then.  
  
Well, there was one way to tell. If Derek were subject 0, he could still be infected. It was Stiles' duty to quarantine the threat, even if his procedure was a little, well. Delayed.  
  
He dove for his closet, sifting through sea of hangers and had an idle thought of asking his girlfriend to sort her things back to her side of the closet. Or not, he decided with a wince, all things considered. It probably wasn't the time to be making demands. Wedged in the back behind the snowboard he'd bought on impulse at some block party garage sale, Stiles finally found his lacrosse stick and pulled it out with a good backwards heave. He blew the dust off the top, rubbed the odd cobweb off the netting and, turned, ready to advance on the bed. He reached out with a gentle hand to nudge Derek in the side, but it turned into a solid whack on the side of the face because in his morning inventory he'd forgotten about dropping his tennis crap at the end of the bed after school and rackets were not stable footing.  
  
It was the thought that count.  
  
In that light, Derek's reaction was completely uncalled for. The son of a bitch  _threw a pillow_ at him hard, Stiles stumbled back over the damned racket and ended up on the floor. Then, without so much as a glance to see if Stiles would survive, Derek stole the rest of the blankets and wedge them under his head as a make-shift replacement.  
  
“ _You_ ,” Stiles declared, wincing on the floor, “are a  _dick.”  
  
_ As far as curses went, he was leaning towards a firm 'no'. It was kind of a relief. Sort of. Ish. _  
  
_ “ _You,_ ” Derek grumbled with a sleepy slur and sulky frown without cracking an eye, “hit me in the face.”  
  
“That was accidental.” He defended. Sitting up was an insulting experience, with his lacrosse stick tangled in his feet and the racket twisted painfully under his butt. As if he didn't have enough bruises down there already.  
  
Derek huffed at the blankets,“Stiles.”  
  
“What,” he pouted in return.  
  
“Go back to sleep or get out.” And with that, Derek turned over and jammed his head under the covers. Stiles was left staring at a tuft of black hair and the triskele on his shoulders.  
  
“So,” Stiles crept closer to the foot of the bed hesitantly. “Nod once for 'yes', twice for 'no'. Have you recently been involved in a magical catastrophe of the personality variety?”  
  
“ _Stiles.”_   
  
Yeah, ok.  
  
-  
  
In good news, Stiles was 88% sure he hadn't taken advantage of a werewolf under the influence.  
  
In bad news, he still had a werewolf in his bed where a witch should be.  
  
Stiles decided it was way too early to deal with that without coffee.  
  
Good coffee.  
  
So much coffee.  
  
-  
  
Stiles tried not to focus on doing the walk of shame out of his own apartment. Instead, he decided to cash in his 'relationship crisis' card and phone a friend. He fished his phone out of his pocket and froze, wincing at the missed call. It was followed by a sweet, grammatically mutilated text, 'sorry ii missed u. sleep tight.' She used to be meticulous about her spelling when she texted, spitting and cursing when autocorrect would hijack her conversation and send it in ridiculous directions. After they started dating, Stiles' own brand of texting incoherence eventually broke down her resolve and transformed her messages into trollish garble same as him.  
  
She'd picked up the bad habit from him.  
  
Stiles winced, making nonsensical connections between the past and his current situation in his head. It looped through depressing guilt, weighing heavily on his complete inadequacies as a human being, and dropped him firmly off back where he started with no idea what to do, but hating himself at least 3 times more than when he began.  
  
Yeah, he needed serious friend therapy. The problem was figuring out who would be most likely to deal with his shit instead of leaving him to wallow in it.  
_  
_ Scotty, while his main man and friendo numbero uno, would try to listen. He'd buck himself up with good intentions, but his moral compass was way too strong to be of much help. He'd keep asking about 'Why?' and 'What about Margie?' and 'What were you thinking?' and he seriously couldn't deal with that right now. He didn't have the answers for himself, much less Scott and his puppy eyes. He was a terrible person, Stiles didn't need the help. He needed help being less of a terrible person. Lydia would normally be his go-to for solutions of the self-serving variety, but he had a feeling that after being dumped by a kanima, lied to by a werewolf, rejected by a phoenix, and strung along by ta Phi Kappa Kappa chapter president, she was way more likely to personally roast his balls over the fire and present them to Margie on a silver platter. Which might be fair, but also not helpful. Dad was a no for obvious reasons, mainly being no, god no, dicks were involved so  _no,_ and  _gah._   
  
That left Malia, because Peter was evil and Liam was Scott Jr. except terrible in every way. So, ex-girlfriend it was. Besides, she broke up with him, so she didn't really have reason to be bitter about how he treated women. Hopefully.  
  
Who was he kidding? Malia was either going to hang up on him or rip him a new one, but at least she'd be quick about it, one way or another.  
  
Shuddering in the brisk morning air, Stiles hunkered down against the wind, pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, and pressed 'call'.  
  
-  
He'd had his share of bad sex his freshmen year of college. It was after the rush of discovery with Malia and deep in the jaded pain of rejection that Stiles realized he was finally considered a sexual presence to other people. He went to parties and walked out with friendly girls who were looking for validation or a moment to feel good and, just like him, they probably didn't find it. It took him till Margie to realize he wasn't looking for sex, he was looking for understanding. Sex wasn't all that great until someone wanting to know him and let him learn in return.  
  
Derek kissed him like undiscovered country.  
  
Stiles didn't know how to do anything but explore.  
  
-  
“What did you do.”  
  
Stiles wanted to be offended, but really, he was just impressed. “How do you know I did something?” He asked. “I could be hurt. I could be dying.”  
  
“You would've called Scott,” she replied without skipping a beat.  
  
“Maybe I missed you. You're in Chicago. That's really far away. Is this how you treat people who care about you?”  
  
“Stiles,” Malia growled, the burr in her throat resonating down the line, “what. Did. You. Do?”  
  
“Yeah, no,” He decided. “I'm just gonna call Scott.”  
  
“Stiles, you have three seconds to start talking or I call your Dad. I don't think you want him asking what happened.”  
  
“Yeah, no, bye.”  
  
-  
  
So, apparently, Malia learned how to blackmail people in Chicago.  
  
It hadn't improved her sense of humor, though, and he hung up after she started howling again for the third time.  
  
-  
  
Calling Scott was a bad idea. He wasn't sure, but Stiles might have made him cry.  
  
Scott like Margie. He also liked having an entire coven willing to help out with whatever supernatural threat headed their way as long as they paid in margaritas and bad romance novels, which Stiles was getting the feeling was what Scott was more afraid of losing than Stiles' eternal happiness. Sometimes, Stiles forgot Scott could be kind of a dick.  
  
When he said as much, Scott sighed sadly and asked him keep the pack out of it when Margie found out. He wanted to stay on her good side if she decided to experiment with boils.  
  
Yeah, Scott was a dick.  
  
-  
  
Luckily, while his friends may have been a well drawn dry, the local barista was surprisingly helpful for someone handling the morning rush. Alex was a tiny slip of nothing that jammed her hair under the green ball cap with a senseless sort of order every morning and could rattle off a perfect 10 step coffee order without ever remembering your name.  
  
She was totally his spirit animal.  
  
Alex was also completely uninterested in him in any way which made her a personal favorite of Margie's, so Stiles was torn about asking her for advice on the matter because he knew girls had the whole 'Chicks before Dicks' motto, but he'd run out of options.  
  
“Heeeeey, Alex,” He sidled up to the counter as soon as the guy in front of him waddle away, leaning in with a charming grin.  
  
She started punching buttons on the register. “No.”  
  
“What do you mean 'no', I haven't even asked,” he whined, “for all you know, I could have front row seats to the hottest concert of the year.”  
  
“Stiles,” Alex flicked her eyes up from the register and snapped her gum, drawling disdainfully, “the hottest concerts don't have seats.”  
  
“Semantics,” he waved off, “my point is that I am man of great opportunities and you just turned one down without even letting me offer.”  
  
“3.29, Slick. Pay up and get out of the way. You're blocking my tips.”  
  
“Ugh,” he started fishing his wallet out of his jeans before he remembered he needed to change his regular order. “Actually, can you like, double that? And add a couple plain black coffees?”  
  
Alex paused, tongue wedged back under her tongue as she rolled her gum against her molars suspiciously. “I could, yeah. But I'm thinking I need an explanation.”  
  
“Oh come on,” he threw his hands up. “Five seconds ago you didn't want to hear anything, now you're interrogating me for my order? Is this my punishment for insulting your nose ring last week? Because it was hideous and I stand by my statement.”  
  
“I'd forgotten about that, actually,” Alex cocked her head, “but now that you've reminded me – yeah. Yeah, that's what this is about. And the fact you haven't changed your order in six months. Added to the fact you're acting shady as shit this morning, something's rotten in the state of Denmark.”  
  
Stiles glared at her. “Fine.”  
  
“Good. Now,” her fingers flew over the register and she jabbed her hand out for his debit card. “spill.”  
  
“What, here?” He asked, handing his card over and waving to the line of people behind him. “Don't you have a job to do?”  
  
“Unlike you, Mr. Stilinski, some of us can multitask without fucking up our lives.” She leaned past him and hollered, “Next!” shoving him out of the way.  
  
“Ok, what, wait -” He stuttered in confusion, but she just snapped her fingers at him and took the next order.  
  
After a moment, she paused and gave him a look, “Well? You gonna start talking or are you just going to stand there looking stupid?”  
  
“Why are girls so mean to me?”  
  
“Because you ask for it. Talk.”  
  
So he did. Broken up between triple shot, extra foam, carmel macchiatos and fancy scones, Stiles outlined as much of his situation as he could, desperately trying to dodge werewolves and magic in general.  
  
“So, you're trying to say his magic dick left you no choice but to cheat on your girlfriend.”  
  
“What,” he sputtered, “No. I mean, it was kinda overwhelming but I'm pretty sure it wasn't magic.”  
  
“Extra hot venti latte, single pump vanilla!” Alex called, expertly sliding the empty cup down the counter to stop in the row of growing drink orders ready to be made. His had been sitting on the counter for five minutes and would probably be cold by the time he got him, but at this point, Stiles wasn't really concerned with the quality of his coffee. “No shit, dude. It sounds to me like you're trying to complicate things.”  
  
“Complicate things?” Stiles squinted at her in disbelief, slumping agains the counter as the next soccer mom stepped up in line. He could tell she'd been listening in because she shot him a dirty look before she rattled off her order. “What about this  _isn't_ complicated? Did you listen to what I said?”  
  
“Yeah,” Alex shrugged. “The girlfriend you like is out of town and your super hot high school crush showed up and rocked your world.”  
  
Well, when you put it that way, it didn't come off quite as overwhelming as he'd been picturing it. “Yeah, but none of it makes sense! I love Margie. Margie is great. I'm perfectly happy with Margie. I'm not looking for anything else, so what the hell happened? He kissed me and  _bam_ there went the Stiles train down infidelity road! I didn't even think about it! Don't most people have that moment when they realize they're about to do something terrible and decide whether they're going to turn left or turn right?”  
  
“Stiles,” Alex sighed, handing over exact change and nodding to Soccer Mom, “Margie's great. She's cute, she's funny, and she doesn't take your shit. Any guy would be lucky to have her.”  
  
“Exactly!”  
  
“So, you're a selfish dick, but we already knew that. What you obviously haven't figured out is that while Margie makes you happy, riding this guy's bologna pony obviously gives you something you were missing in life, so why don't you just admit it and move on?”  
  
He blinked. “Wait.” Stiles paused, breaking down the theoretical value of her statement. “Are you saying I should break up with my girlfriend because Derek's good in bed?”  


“Of course not,” Alex ducked under the counter and fished out a pile of baggies for the dessert window, refilling the canisters quickly as she went. “I'm saying you're a shallow asshole and Margie doesn't deserve to be stuck in a relationship with you when you're only going to forget about her as soon as the next piece of nice ass walks in.” She gave one of the cardboard boxes under the counter a solid kick and added, “Ya know, as long as they're good in bed.”  
  
“But I didn't forget her for a nice piece of ass,” he whined in distress. “I've seen lots of nice ass! You're nice ass! I don't forget about Margie when I talk to you! I just... forgot with Derek.”  
  
“So you forget about her around Derek.” She shrugged. “Tomato, tomahto. Point still stands.”  


He sighed slumped forward on the glass display, ripping at the roots of his hair. “I suck, yeah. I got it.”  
  
“Glad you got that.”  
  
“So what do I  _do?_ ”  
  
“Stiles,” Alex stopped finally, shedding her sharp shell of animated sarcasm for a moment and smiled crookedly at him with a quirked brow. “This isn't an ethics exam. You've already fucked up. There's no getting out of this without hard feelings and one hell of a screaming match. Take advantage of that and do whatever the fuck you want. If you want to clean up your mess, throw him out and fess up. She'll be pissed, but she'll probably forgive you. Margie gives a shit about you and she doesn't seem like the type to give up easy. But,” she leaned over the counter, “be sure that's what you really want. Because you didn't cheat on her by accident. No matter how confused you are, there's a reason it happened and you owe it to yourself to figure out why. Sticking it out with a good girl is the responsible choice. It's what every sensible person is going to tell you. They're going to say you made a mistake and you need to fix it. Save your relationship, all that good stuff. I don't know about you, but sticking yourself in a situation because it's responsible sucks. Make sure you're not just making each other miserable so you can tell yourself you're a good person later. That's worse than fucking around in the first place.”  
  
He sighed, “Yeah. Thanks,” and tapped his knuckles on the counter.  
  
“No problem,” she passed his order over. “You're a good tipper.”  
  
-  
  
“I,” Stiles announced loudly to the empty living room with a grand flourish, kicking the front door shut behind him, “need a Blink-182 song about my life.”  


Alex was right. Stiles was an asshole. He'd always been an asshole, he'd always be an asshole, and it was time to stop beating himself up for showing his stripes and just decide where he needed to go from here. The rest was irrelevant. Sure, he'd never be able to go back to the Blue Morning Cafe and Becca was totally going to drop his discount at the grocery store, but this was life and sometimes, things got messy. What was a little routine adjustment? Life was meant to be full of excitement.  
  
He turned into the kitchen and stumbled, up ending one of Derek's drinks all over the giant pile of black trash sacks crammed together in front of the refrigerator. After a moment of cursing and vainly trying to wring the coffee out of his shirt Stiles tripped carefully through the growing mess of bulging bags to the counter and dropped the dripping tray in the sink, chalking up the surviving drinks as a lost cause. The kitchen was a wreck. Cupboards stood open, gutted and empty except for the odd box of cereal tucked on the top shelf and a can opener he'd lost ages ago. The line of spices that sat along the back splash were gone and Margie might forgive him for the rest of this mess, but if anything happened to those plants he was a dead man.  
  
Taking in the empty drawers and pillaged pantry, Stiles wasn't feeling particularly optimistic.  
  
“Derek!” It all made sense, now. Derek's new look wasn't funded by a sugar daddy at all. He'd turned to a life of crime, robbing one vulnerable college student at a time and selling their life's work to the highest bidder. “What are you doing with my stuff?! God damn it,” he hissed, wadding back out the way he came and trying to avoid to secret sharp edges hiding in the sea of black.  
  
Derek wandered out of the bedroom like he owned the place, daring to roll his eyes at Stiles' graceless fumble. He reached out and grabbed him by the back of the shirt and slid and arm around Stiles' waist, hoisting out of the mire without so much as a please. “Chill,” he chided. “Your stuff's exactly where you left it.”  
  
“Then what the hell is this!” He gestured, waving his arms around at the disaster. “Because this is definitely not how I left it.”  


“I'm just cleaning up,” Derek turned back down the hall and it took a moment of watching his ass for Stiles to notice Derek was wearing his pajamas.  
  
Life of crime. It made so much sense. He was obviously not going to be any help.  
  
Stiles scowled and grabbed the nearest bag, dragging it out of the mess and ripping at the knot until it pulled apart. He flipped it upside down and gave it a good shake, watching as a full wardrobe of clothes fell to the floor. Shirts, skirts, jeans, socks – the mix was so indiscriminate that it took him a moment to realize they were all Margie's clothes.  
  
“What the fuck?” He grabbed another bag and ripped it open. It was full of shoes. He grabbed a high heel off the top and instantly recognised it as one of the ones he'd tripped over last night.  
  
The next bag had the throw pillows off the sofa and the towels, another was full of broken dishes Stiles distinctly remember Margie saying was a moving out present from her parents, and the last was filled with the whole grain health nut food missing from the shelves. “Derek!” Stiles marched down the hall without waiting for a response and threw open the bedroom door. “What the hell are you doing with Margie's stuff?”  
  
Derek paused, flora duvet half in a bag. He responded with a blank, “Who's Margie?”  
  
“Margie,” Stiles pressed with a hysteric laugh, “ _Margie,_ Derek! My girlfriend? She lives here? Ring a bell?”  
  
“Oh,” shrugged it off and went back to shoveling the bedding into the bag, “it smelled.”  
  
“So you're what?” Stiles demanded, “Throwing it out?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Cause that made sense.  
  
Derek paced the room, gathering up fallen tidbits on the bedside tables and hanging off the door knobs; he even picked a hair tie out of the carpet and tossed it in the bag before shoving Margie's discarded pillow in on top of it.  
  
“Stop.” Stiles demanded. “Just stop!” He crossed the room and wrenched the bag away from Derek, staring at his startle face incredulously. What the hell was he so surprised about? From the moment he showed up, Stiles had been flat footed and trying to catch up while Derek stormed through his life like some tall dark and handsome bull in a china shop and Stiles was done. “What the hell is going on here?”  
  
“I'm cleaning up.” Derek replied, am edge of confusion creeping in. “What does it look like?”  
  
“I have no idea what it looks like, that's why I'm asking,” Stiles snapped. “It looks like you've lost your mind. What the hell has gotten into you?”  
  
There was the Derek Stiles remembered, turning away with a curled lip and starting to dig what promised to be a very deep whole in his floor if he let him keep pacing. “I told you,” Derek gritted out, “it smelled. I don't like it. We don't need it.”  
  
“We?” Stiles laughed, “What we? We what? What we are you talking about? Because last I checked, we? We aren't even friends, Derek. We haven't talked in years! I'm lucky if Scott mentions it when you send him an email, so excuse me if I'm a little slow on the uptake when you say we because I'm not exactly in the loop these days.” Stiles nearly flinched at the gutted expression that flickered over Derek's face while he yelled, but he bolstered himself and pushed on, finally at his wits' end. “Why did you come here, Derek? What's supposed to happen here, because I'm lost. I'm up shit creek without a paddle and all you're throwing me is whiffle balls! Do you get how that makes no fucking sense, Derek? You show up, you kiss me, and next thing I know we're hot and heavy and I can't think straight and when I wake up I'm not real sure how we got from point A to point B and no one's handing out directions.”  
  
Derek wasn't looking at him anymore and Stiles didn't know what to do, so he gave up and sat down on the bag, settling down into the blanket and pillow and god knows what else his whacked out werewolf decided to shove in there while he wasn't looking. He couldn't even muster a laugh when the air puttered out with a fart and squeak. It just wasn't funny right now.  
  
He'd gotten used to scary people looking oddly docile after years of werewolves curling up on his sofa after a hard night in the woods, but there was an insecurity to Derek's fidgeting Stiles hadn't experienced in a long time. He'd forgotten what it was like to watch him when his walls of false confidence finally fell and he had to try and muster up the courage to continue. “Derek,” he sighed, resting his head in his hand, “You've got to give me something, man.”  


“I needed to see you,” Derek broke finally, muttering it towards the floor while he flexed his hands and refused to look at him.  
  
“Why,” Stiles pushed, throwing his hands up. “What was so urgent you couldn't wait to give me a phone call?”  
  
“I just did,” he snapped, eyes flashing as he finally looked up. Derek pulled himself back together and advanced, anger and aggression wrapping around him like a familiar comfort. “You wouldn't understand.”  
  
Stiles stared. He just stared, because what the fuck. What the ever loving fuck, “Are you _kidding me!_ ” He exploded. Lurching to his feet, Stiles pushed himself close and let his frustration fly, “Are you seriously telling me I should let you come in here and fuck up my life _because you said so?_ I'm supposed to just step aside and go 'Oh, sure, go ahead!' like it's no big deal that you're ripping apart everything I've worked for because you've got to werewolf and it's just not the same if you're screwing up someone else's life? Is that it, Derek? Is that really what you're going with? Because I've got to tell you, if that's the best you've got for me, you can go fuck yourself.”  
  
Derek stared him dead in the eye, lips curled in a snarl.  
  
“Well come on, then,” Stiles goaded. “Out with it.”  
  
Derek turned away without a word and marched out the door, no shirt, no shoes, no problem.  
  
Bemused, Stiles stared at the empty bedroom door. After a moment, he crawled in to bed, sloppily kicked off his jeans somewhere beside him, and pulled the sheet over his head.  
  
The front door opened again and Stiles braced himself, listening to the barest whisper of Derek's feet across the hard wood floors, but they never turned toward the bedroom before the door slammed shut again.  
  
-  
  
It wasn't fair. Stiles curled his arms around himself as he sullenly picked at the aching hole where Derek used to be. He hadn't done anything, he didn't ask for this, and now he had nothing to show for it except the impending end of his longest relationship and a sickness in his belly that was completely out of proportion with the importance of Derek Hale in his life. It hadn't hurt like this when he'd driven off into the sunset the first time. It was lonely when he decided to leave the second, but they'd all missed him. It was odd to think of him as a stabilizing force after years of being one more flashpoint in their already chaotic lives, but there was something about Derek that seemed to settle him after he sacrificed his power for Cora.  
  
Stiles didn't know if it was the loss of the Alpha instincts or the feeling that he could still save the people he loved that really brought him out of the alert and reactive state they'd become so used to, but he remembered wishing there'd been a way to make him stick around back then. Maybe if he'd tried it, Stiles wouldn't be in this mess.  
  
His phone rang in his pants pocket. He debated letting it go to voicemail, but honestly, nothing was going to make things worse at this point and he already knew who would be waiting on the other end. It still took him a moment to muster the will to move, but he pressed the button and pressed his phone to his ear before it went to voicemail.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
“ _Hey, babe!”_ Margie's voice chirped brightly from across the country. “ _You ok? You sound dead tired.”_  
  
“It's been a bad day.”  
  
_“Nothing a cup of tea can't make a little better,”_ she insistent like she always did. “ _Want to grab a cup and tell me what's going on?”_  
  
Stiles mind drifted to the trash bags of broken dishes sitting in the kitchen, realizing her kettle was tossed in somewhere in the middle of it and there was no sense lying anymore. Not that he'd really started. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Shit happened last night and you're going to be so pissed and I can't fix it, but I need you to know I'm really sorry,” he admitted, fighting back the heavy sobs that settled into his chest. He wasn't the one who had a right to cry about anything, but it didn't seem to stop him. “I want you to know I love you. I do. I just – I fucked up and things don't make any sense.”  
  
_“Stiles, are you ok? What's going on. I promise I won't be mad, I just need you to tell me what's going on? Do I need to come back? Have you talk to Scott? Babe, I really need you to talk to me, ok, can you do that?”  
  
“_ I just -”  
  
A hand settled heavy on his shoulder and he flinched in fear, struggling against the sheet that had gone from shielding him just a moment ago into a suffocating trap. His breaths came short and fast and the sheet wrapped around him tighter and tighter until he couldn't tell what was up and -  


It was gone and Derek was there, petting back his hair and telling him to breath. “It's ok,” he soothed with a tinge of fear in his voice. “It's just me.”  
  
Stiles stared and let his mind disconnect while his body tried to stop his heart from pounding out of his chest with small, shallow breaths. They jerked out of his chest, one right after another in a stressful tempo, but Derek held his gaze and didn't release his grip on Stiles' arms. Instead, he rubbed his thumbs gently back and forth over the crease of his elbows until Stiles started to blink again.  
  
It took another moment, but Stiles realize the odd buzzing was coming from his phone and he cursed, rubbing a hand roughly over his face. Derek picked it up and Stiles sighed, “I need to get that.”  
  
Quirking a brow, Derek answered it instead, “What. He's fine. Scott knows.” And he then he hung up and turned it off, because when it came to people skills, Derek was still a few grades below the curve.  
  
He should argue, Stiles noted absently, because Margie was probably freaking out right now and she didn't deserve that, but he was finding it really hard to muster the proper motivation to do anything but sit there.  
  
Derek must have grabbed his clothes from the living room when he came and left earlier, because he wasn't sitting around in Stiles' pajama's anymore. The Cashmere sweater looked as soft this morning as it had last night, but his pants didn't recycle near as well with creases and wrinkles from their stint on the floor running all down his long muscular legs.  
  
“It's instinct,” Derek broke the silence with a stilted false start. “It,” he deflated and pulled away, stepping off the bed and giving them both some breathing room.  
  
Uncharacteristically quiet but emotionally exhausted, Stiles just let him work himself into a roiling mess of things he probably wasn't going to express in any coherent fashion because, honestly? All of this was starting to sound like his fault and Stiles was exactly that spiteful. Instead, he waited and let Derek find his tongue.  
  
“You're not a witch.” Derek said, not asking, just stating it as a simple fact.  
  
Stiles waited for him to elaborate, but after awhile, it was clear he needed a bit of a push. “I know,” he prodded. “I tried.”  
  
“I know you tried,” Derek huffed angrily, turning back around. “I know you did because you ended up  _everywhere._ Do you know why I left Beacon Hills?” He didn't pause, barreling on as if any interruption would pull the train of the tracks, “I left because every time I came back people died. I left because I started something when I was too young and too stupid to know what I was doing and that meant a whole town suffered for it. You and Scott and Lydia and Allison – everything that happened to you happened because of me. I'm the reason Lydia screams, Stiles. I'm the reason Scott will never be able to go to a real university or decide to move to Japan with Kira while she learns what she can do. I'm the reason you're dripping power all over your girlfriend's trinkets and tokens and stupid little charms that she's passing out to every shifty-eyed shaman that walks by her booth. Do you know what it means when a human ruptures magic like you do? Do you know what they can do to you if they have one of those little tokens? They can call you, Stiles, and your little girlfriend might feel a bit of a tug when she falls asleep at night, but you're not going to be able to fight it. It'll feel like the nogistune all over again, but this time it won't be asking you to hurt anyone, it'll just ask you to come and you will because you've left little parts of yourself sprinkled across the country.  
  
“I had to protect you,” He insisted. “I wasn't – there wasn't time for anything else. I tried to find all of them, but the more I looked, the more I found and people were starting to notice. I shouldn't've done it, but it was the only thing I could find that would stop them from being able to catch you.”  
  
Stiles sat there, slack jawed, completely stunned. “What are you talking about? I'm not – Derek, I can't  _do_ magic. I've tried. It never works. I just help put together the supplies while Margie works. I'm not  _doing_ anything.”  
  
“Stiles,” Derek sighed tiredly, “You can't do magic anymore because the nemeton turned you inside out and opened you up. If the darach hadn't happened, you'd probably be just like any other hedgewitch, maybe a mage if you could concentrate on spellwork that long, but after you went under you came back different. You aren't a conduit anymore, you're a source, and you've got a gaping hole I need to close or someone is going to take you and bleed you dry.”  
  
“So, what,” Stiles scoffed painfully, “you decided to come heal me with your magic dick? Seriously, Derek, that's what this is leading up to? It's worse than a pity-fuck, it's a bad fan fiction cliché. My life is written by a 14 year old girl.”  
  
“ _No.”_ He scratched at his neck, rubbing at the high collar of the sweater with an irritated insistence that started driving Stiles crazy just watching him.  
  
“Just take it off,” he snapped. “It's not like I haven't seen you naked.”  
  
With a growl, grabbed the back of his sweater and flexed it over his head with a ridiculous wiggle. In better circumstances, Stiles would give him shit for dog-like shake he gave afterwords, but for now he let him alone while he untangled his undershirt from the material and pulled it back down. Then he kicked off his shoes and shucked his pants for good measure and scowled.  
  
“If you hate those clothes so much, why did you wear them?” Stiles wasn't expecting Derek to care what he said, but the man froze, glancing up at him with a guilty blush before he walked out and left Stiles sitting alone on the bed, again. Since he didn't seem ready to bolt, Stiles let him go and focused on what he had explained so far which was... a lot, actually. Not much that made sense, but enough to scare him into considering some alarming possibilities no matter how things ended up.  
  
Derek appeared in the door a minute later, shifty-eyed and unsure. Finally, he stepped in and pulled a bouquet of flowers out from behind his back. When Stiles just looked at them, he gave them a pointed shake.  
  
“Uh,” Stiles blanked, “Ok.” He took them awkwardly and held them perfectly upright like they might bite him. “Thanks?  
  
“It's like the Little Mermaid,” Derek mumbled, shuffling awkward back to the bed.  
  
“If the prince doesn't kiss me, the witch gets to keep my voice,” Stiles countered incredulously. “A big heavy handed with the real life parallels, aren't we?”  
  
Growling was always a particular talent of his and Derek's frustration didn't disappoint, “No, not – your girlfriend isn't the problem. Wasn't the problem. There isn't a problem anymore because – no. No, the mermaid was made of magic. Because she was made of magic, when she made a deal with the sea witch, she didn't just sign away her voice or her body, she signed away her existence. When she turned into sea foam at the end, that was the sea witch taking all of her magic until there was nothing left. Her contract made a door for the sea witch and when the terms were fulfilled, the sea witch got the key. You don't need a contract to make a door and they don't need a key. You're already sitting wide open. The only reason no one noticed before now is because Scott was power enough to overwhelm anything else in the area, but now you're out here on your own and you're sitting with a coven while they're casting. You're getting tied up in everything they do, Stiles!”  
  
“That's....” He took a deep breath. “Ok, that's actually pretty bad. But that doesn't explain this.” He gestured between them. “The me thing and you thing.”  
  
“Like I said,” Derek replied carefully, solemnity heavy in his voice. He turned towards Stiles, but it took a long moment before he look at him again. “When the prince rejected the mermaid, it gave the sea witch the key. So, if he'd accepted the mermaid...”  
  
“The sea witch didn't get the key.” Stiles finished for him.  
  
“And the door,” Derek explained slowly, “would disappear.”  
  
The weight of his story pressed around them as they watched one another for long, quiet moments.  
  
Unsurprisingly, it was Stiles that broke first, “Are you seriously telling me you werewolf married me so I wouldn't turn into sea foam without  _calling first?”_ but Derek refused to give him the satisfaction of admitting that he might have rushed into things and kept his mouth stubbornly shut, even as he tensed his shoulders for another round of fighting.  
  
“God, you stupid son of bitch,” Stiles sighed resignedly, giving in to the overwhelming urge to pull the stupid, infuriating, loyal bastard as close as he could. Derek tumbled into it, wrapping is arms tight and strong around his shoulders while cradling Stiles safely towards the crook of his neck, breathing in the scent of his hair and letting it feel like home. “I'm still mad,” he mumbled. “Like really, super mad.”  
  
Derek just nuzzled his nose closer to his ear and gave a happy sigh.  
  
  
“Wait,” He reared back so he could eye him suspiciously, “I asked you this morning if you were cursed.”  
  
“We're not cursed,” Derek pouted.  
  
“Magically enchanted into boning me totally counts!”  
  
“Stiles,” Derek growled, “we're not cursed.”  
  
“So, what? We're just so awesome at sex I forgot the part where I was in a dedicated relationship until the orgasms wore off?”  
  
Stiles looked distinctly unimpressed  
  
Derek quirked a brow.  
  
Stiles stared.  
  
“Oh.” Good to know he was still a terrible person. What the hell, Stiles decided. It was better than sea foam.  
  
-

THE END

 


End file.
